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THK GREAT K.MEKAI.ll JilRD OE I'AIiAUlSE.* 



The genus ParadUea contains tlie famous birds of paradise so noted during our early 

 intercourse with the eastern countries. The bill is straight, compressed, rather strong, 

 unnotched, the nostrils surrounded by a close tissue of feathers of a velvet texture, 

 sometimes resplendent with metallic lustre. The birds are native to New (juinea and the 

 neighbouring islands, and in consecjuenco of the delicately graceful structure of their 

 plumage, and the pure and beautifully blended colours by which they are adorned, the 

 species in general may be regarded as the most highly prized of all the feathered race. 

 Their histoiy was long obscure as niglit, and even now wc have but few features of their 

 character devcloiied by the actual observation of trustworthy witnesses. 



In the second edition of " Pennant's Indian Zoology," there is a general descrijjtion of 

 the genus from Valentyn and other writers, by Dr. J. R. Forster, preceded by a leained 

 disquisition on the fabulous pho'nix of antiquity, a bird of the size of an eagle, decorated 

 with gold and purjjle plumes, and more particularly described by Pliny as being charac- 

 terised by the splendour of gold around the neck, with the rest of the body purjjle, the 

 tailblue varied with rose colour, the face adorned ^vith combs or wattles, and the head 

 furnished with a crest. This excellently adorned pha;nix Dr. Forster very properly 

 supposes to have been no other than a symbolical Egyptian illustration of the annual 

 revolution of the .sun, and the conversion of the great ycor, which, according to JManilius, 



* Paradisica Major. 



